Advertising in video, such as a television (TV) program, is primarily accomplished by either placing a conventional advertisement in commercial breaks during the display of the TV program (which is an explicit means of advertising) or, by placing a product in the scenes of the video in which the product appears as “naturally” part of the scene, and is not being explicitly advertised (this form of advertising is known as “implicit advertising”). As advertising becomes more cluttered on TV and on the Internet, and with the increasing ability of video viewers (i.e. intended consumers of the advertisers) to avoid such advertising using digital video recorders (DVRs) and other means, the demand for implicit advertising continues to grow.
The market for implicit advertising has been valued at over $4 billion in 2005, and has been growing at over 20% per year. Today, product placements appear in TV shows, films, video games, and new media such as the online virtual world known as Second Life.
Typically, products placed in videos as implicit advertising are placed when the video is filmed or made. Another method adds a flash movie layer to a streaming video format to provide interactivity to the video, thereby allowing users to scroll over or click on elements within the video to obtain more information. Once the video is released for viewing, there lacks a means to identify, locate, replace, supplement or otherwise alter the original product placed in the streaming video.